


Faster Than Without Water

by GloriaMundi



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaMundi/pseuds/GloriaMundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Art and lies, paradoxes and mazes: Ariadne needs to unravel a crime that was committed in dreams <span class="u">and</span> in reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faster Than Without Water

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Rebellion, Lies' by The Arcade Fire:  
>  _People say that you'll die  
>  Faster than without water  
> But you know it's just a lie..._

"We can't just ... we can't just leave him dreaming," insisted Ariadne, standing at the foot of the bed and staring down at the man lying unconscious there. Behind his bruised eyelids, his eyes were moving rapidly: REM sleep. "We have to find out what happened."

"Do you have any idea -- any idea at all -- how dangerous it can be to enter another dreamer's dream in the middle of things?" said Dom.

"I don't care," said Ariadne. "I just want to know how – how they – " God, she hated this: hated not being able to talk about it, hated the rawness, hated the way the tears welled salt and bitter every time she tried to say their names.

"You think he's dreaming about what went wrong?" demanded Dom, turning from the window to frown at her. "You know it's not like natural dreaming. He's not going to be rehearsing what's happened, trying to make sense of it. _You're_ not going to be able to make sense of it."

"I want to know," said Ariadne, stubborn.

"Ariadne!" said Professor Miles from the doorway of the hospital room, and the warmth in his voice almost started her weeping again. She let him hug her, awkwardly, and pressed her forehead against his chest. It was the closest to comfort she'd come.

"She wants to go in," Dom said. "But we've got no way of knowing what's going on in there. Just --"

"We know he's dreaming," said Miles. "At least, if the EEGs you sent are anything to go by."

"We don't know _what_ he's dreaming! We don't even know if he's awake in there!"

" _Someone's_ awake," said Miles. He put his hands on Ariadne's shoulders, a warm easy weight, and guided her towards the head of the bed, where Cobb stood scowling down at the monitors. Lines rippled and spiked, red, green, yellow. Ariadne stared hard, trying to make sense of what she saw -- she'd audited a course on neurological monitoring -- but the colours blurred together.

"Until we know more about what happened -- what went wrong -- it's madness to go in," said Dom.

"Well, you'd know about that," said Miles, infuriatingly calm.

Ariadne watched Dom open his mouth, think better of whatever he was about to say, and turn his back on them, staring blindly out of the window at the rain.

"They were our friends," Ariadne said, when neither man seemed likely to speak any time soon. "I want -- Dom and I want to know what happened to them."

"I called Yusuf," said Cobb to the window. "He's flying in this afternoon. If there's anything wrong with the PASIV, with the somnacin, he'll be able to run an analysis."

"And what'll that tell you, exactly?" said Miles. "That their last job didn't go according to plan?"

"We don't even know what the job _was_ ," said Ariadne. She couldn't look at the man in the bed, the rough stubble and the bruises on his face, the slackness of his mouth.

"What _do_ we know?" said Miles.

Cobb turned around, leaning against the windowsill. "They were hired to run an extraction," he said, counting off points on his fingers. "Arthur on point, of course: Eames forging. The architect was a guy named Marlowe -- ring any bells?" Miles shook his head. "The mark was a psychologist, worked mostly in Europe, specialised in digging up repressed memories. She --"

"I didn't know that!" said Ariadne.

"Nor did I, until today," said Cobb. "But that's all my sources could uncover. The four of them went into the dream. He," gesturing at the man in the bed, "was still hooked up. Two dead bodies. Ariadne, trust me: I don't think we're going to be able to fix this."

"I don't care," lied Ariadne. "I want to know what happened." There was a beep from one of the monitors. "I'm going under. Into his dream. Arthur and Eames would -- would have done the same for me." She left 'for you' unspoken, implicit.

"Ariadne --"

"Considering what you put her through, Dom, I don't think you're in a position to start making decisions for her now."

"Cobb, you don't have to come with me," said Ariadne. "It's not like ... Philippa and James need you. I don't want you to do anything that might stop you getting home again."

"Shit!" said Cobb, and for a moment Ariadne thought he was going to punch the wall: but his fist came to rest against the clean white plaster almost gently, though his back was a hard line of tension.

Ariadne met Miles' considering gaze. Neither of them said anything.

"Honour among thieves," said Cobb at last, with a chuckle that had nothing of humour in it. "All right. I'll go in with you. But the first sign of trouble --"

"Thank you," said Ariadne. Her throat felt as though she'd been crying for days. Six months ago, she hadn't known any of them. Then Miles had pulled her aside after class and introduced her to a stranger who had a proposition for her: and her life had been turned around, rotated through more dimensions than she could count, mirrored and twisted and forged afresh.

And this, this was the flipside of dreaming. Being awake and wishing that _reality_ was a nightmare. Wishing she could make sense of it. Wanting to know what'd happened.

"Let's do it," she said.

"Shouldn't we --"

"Who knows how quickly time's passing, in there? The sooner we go in, the better."

Cobb and Miles worked quickly, setting up the PASIV on the castored table at the end of the bed. Ariadne flopped down in the more comfortable of the visitor chairs, shoving the sleeve of her red sweater up and clenching her fist to pump the vein.

"See you on the other side," said Dom, settling himself in the other chair and propping his feet on the end of the bed.

"I'll keep the nurses at bay," offered Miles, moving to close the door and draw the blinds.

Ariadne did not trust herself to speak. She ducked her head, focussing on sliding the needle into her arm.

"Just remember, Ariadne," Miles was saying, "not everything in the dream --"

* * *

He's sitting comfortably in a canvas chair, at the perfect distance to stare up at Bond of Union. The print is lit softly from below, and every gradation of shade is clear and clean. He's following each curve of the single line that defines the two faces. If he follows the shape of it for long enough, he'll find his way inside. It's like meditation: he can lose himself in the reciprocity of the image. The equilibrium. The --

Abruptly, somewhere nearby, there's the clatter of footsteps on the granite floor. Two people walking fast: a man and a woman. He reaches into his jacket, sets his hand on the Glock, braces himself for action. He's not expecting to see anybody here. The gallery is closed today, and only one other person has a key.

"Arthur!"

It's Ariadne. Ariadne shouldn't be here, wasn't here, can't be here. _Is_ here. Arthur would roll his die, but there's not really a lot of point: he knows this is a dream, and he knows who's dreaming. Still: Ariadne. And --

(he frowns)

\-- Cobb, a couple of steps behind her, scowling at Arthur.

"I wasn't expecting company," says Arthur. He rises to his feet, nods to Cobb (who's still shooting him that savage look) and smiles at Ariadne. "This is a surprise."

Ariadne's smile's faltering now, as though Cobb's anger -- and what does _he_ have to be angry about? -- is seeping into her bones. "Yes," she says. "Yes, it is."

"Checked your totem lately, Arthur?" says Cobb, coming to a halt maybe ten feet from where Arthur stands and shoving his clenched hands into his pockets.

"Don't need it," says Arthur. "I don't have any problem telling dreams from reality, and this is obviously a dream." He waves a hand at the spotlights, and they dim.

"Then who's dreaming?" demands Cobb.

"You should know that," says Arthur, "and if you don't, I'm not going to tell you."

"You don't know," says Cobb. "You _can't_ know."

"Really?" says Arthur, mild as milk. "I assume you're here to tell me, then." He turns on his heel and heads off down the hallway, not looking to see if they're following. After all, there's nothing else for them to do.

"We came to find out what happened," says Cobb. "Do you know what happened, Arthur?"

Arthur shrugs. Of course he knows: he was there. It happened to --

(it happened _in_ )

\-- him. But that doesn't mean he's about to tell Cobb. He wishes Cobb hadn't come.

"We came to find you," Ariadne says. He hears her stumble as he hangs a sudden right into a side corridor with pine-green walls.

"You've found me," says Arthur. He glances back. Cobb has fallen behind, and he's staring at one of the Escher prints on the wall, peering intently as though the picture is fading away before his eyes.

"But Arthur," says Ariadne, "you're --"

"Don't!" snaps Cobb.

"And what brings you here, Mr Cobb?" says Arthur. "Reality too much for you? Or were you hoping to catch up with Mal?"

"Mal's gone," says Cobb. A muscle in his jaw leaps and knots. "She's not coming back."

"Whatever you say," agrees Arthur. "There must be something else, then. You can tell me while we walk."

"Where are we going?" says Ariadne.

"Special exhibition," says Arthur. "But there's plenty else to see."

"Nice work," says Cobb, flicking glances at the pictures, the tall granite columns, the muted colours of the walls.

"Thanks," says Arthur, leading them off to the right at the next cross-corridor. "It's a little self-indulgent --" he gestures at a Hirst original "--but I figure if I can't indulge myself occasionally, what's the point?"

"I don't understand where we are," says Ariadne.

Arthur, walking slightly ahead of the others, rolls his eyes. It's not like he didn't know that question was coming. It's just that he doesn't want to answer it.

"We're in a dream," says Cobb. "We're dreaming. This isn't Arthur's dream, and it's not Arthur: it's a projection."

"I'm as good as it gets, Cobb," says Arthur, over Ariadne's sharp intake of breath. "And I don't really think you're in a position to criticise anybody's reality, do you?"

He turns right again. This corridor's painted in a rich Tyrian purple, and the pictures are all pen-and-ink. At the far end, something shimmers. Arthur shortens the corridor with a thought (Cobb's impatience is beginning to irritate him) and abruptly they're entering an open space that's full of light. Arthur likes it here: likes the airiness of the high translucent glass dome, the simplicity of the unadorned white walls, the incongruity of the comfortable crimson settee.

The sofa faces away from the main exhibit, which Arthur doesn't care to look at for too long. Ariadne and Cobb both hurry towards it, staring through the glass.

"It's not him," says Ariadne bemusedly, turning to frown at Arthur.

"It's Marlowe," says Cobb. "From the hospital. He's dreaming."

If Eames were here, he'd be congratulating Cobb on his gift for stating the obvious. Arthur simply nods in agreement, filing away 'hospital' for later consideration.

Marlowe is lying on a thin tatami mat, under a glass case. His chest rises and falls: this is sleep, not death. His face is serene. He is covered, ankle to collarbone, by a white sheet. At the foot of the case, outside the glass, rests the PASIV.

"Still Life," reads Ariadne, leaning down to peer at the shiny silver plaque.

"Still, comma, life," corrects Arthur. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that detail's important?"

"Speaking of detail," says Cobb, "perhaps you'd like to give us some. Was it him?" He gestures at the dreaming man. "Did he sell you out?"

"He was the architect," says Arthur. "He wasn't responsible for what happened."

"Then what _did_ happen?" counters Cobb.

"Iselin Elmasry happened," says Arthur. Her name tastes of bile and rue on his tongue. "She was supposed to be the mark. She was hiding something."

"What was she hiding, Arthur?" It's Ariadne, standing too close, staring up at him.

"Inception," says Arthur, before he can think better of it.

Cobb curses. There's the sound of metal turning and clattering on stone: he's spinning that damned top, or trying to spin it, but he can't get it to balance.

"I don't understand," says Ariadne.

Arthur suppresses a sigh. "Then maybe Eames can explain it better. Why don't you pay a call on him?" He opens up the silver case, hooks a lead, offers it to her.

"Ariadne --"

Ariadne's already settling herself on the sofa and reaching up for the needle. "Cobb, I'll be fine. But, Arthur?"

"Yes?"

"Who's dreaming?"

Arthur smiles at her. "Remember the paradox, Ariadne. Am I dreaming, or --"

* * *

He's sitting on a graffiti-scarred wooden bench, staring across the deserted platform to the other side of the tracks, where dead vines drape a crumbling brick wall and a sliver of winter sky, dull and blank as a dirty mirror, peeks above. It feels like west London, but there are no contrails. The sky is quiet. Everything's quiet.

Which is not a normal state of affairs on any London Underground station that he's ever passed through.

He can't make out the name of the station on the familiar red-and-blue roundel. It's a single word, six or seven characters, but the shapes of the letters are unfamiliar. No, wait, it's Greek: ΚΝΩΣΟΣ. Further down the platform, past a poster advertising a Del Toro film, a dot-matrix indicator tells him in good plain English to listen for announcements. Obediently, he listens, but all he can hear is a faint thready music like a radio tuning in and out of frequency. The melody's oddly familiar, but he can't put a name to it. He glances at his watch, and the second hand's jittering.

He's waiting for a train. Presumably.

First know thyself, he thinks: chuckles, and checks his reflection in the shiny metal frame of the Tube map behind him. It's his face all right, albeit warped and blurred by fingerprints and rust. Experimentally, he tweaks a few features. Fine. He's dreaming.

The map would've told him that. The different lines -- green for District, brown for Bakerloo, yellow for Circle -- are as tangled as an explosion of kittens in a yarn shop. When he looks closely he can see that they're not printed lines at all, but coloured threads stretched between stations that are marked with heavy iron nails. He knows they're nails from coffins.

Apparently the Central Line's had an overhaul. Ealing and Epping are gone: instead, the crimson thread runs from Cretan Wharf via Naxos and Jorge Luis Borges to Labyrinth. And before his train of thought has time to be derailed by the name of that terminus, he's shocked by an unfamiliar sound: the rumble, then roar, of a train coming in on the other track.

He can feel the weight of his gun in his pocket. He leaves it where it is -- what's the worst that can happen? -- and takes the stairs two at a time, the wood creaking beneath his feet as he races over the footbridge and down to the other platform.

The train's just slowing (screech of brakes). It's empty, except for a single figure standing by the rearmost doors.

"Eames!" she yells as the doors swoosh open, and Eames jogs faster down the platform to where Ariadne is holding the door for him.

He opens his mouth to say something, but she's hugging him, tight enough to make his ribs creak. Her breath is fast and uneven. So's his.

"What brings you here?" says Eames, as insouciantly as he can manage, when her arms finally slacken.

"Arthur sent me," says Ariadne, staring up at him. "Cobb didn't want --"

"Cobb," pronounces Eames, "isn't here; so I suggest we ignore what he wants, or doesn't want. Why are you here, Ariadne?"

"I want to know what happened," says Ariadne. She stumbles as the train finally lurches into motion: Eames grabs the rail, and steadies her with his free hand.

"What happened," he says slowly, tasting the syllables. "That's the problem, isn't it?"

"Cobb told me." Ariadne's eyes glitter with tears. "He said you were dead. You're both dead."

"I know," says Eames gently. "I was there."

"I just want," says Ariadne, but she can't finish the sentence: she's wiping her sleeve across her face.

"You want to know how we survived," says Eames flatly. He laughs, not because it's funny but because what else can you do? "We didn't," he says, clear and curt.

"But you're --"

"Arthur," he says, with the most reassuring smile he can muster. "Arthur convinced me that we didn't have to ..."

"To die?" Ariadne's hand tightens on his arm.

"He can be very convincing, I'll have you know."

"Tell me what happened with Iselin."

The train is underground now, rushing through the darkness. Eames grimaces at his reflection in the window. "Iselin Elmasry is a psychologist," he says. "She specialises in patients who're repressing memories. She was brought in to work with a key witness in a murder case -- Ricky Teran, young bloke, embarrassingly clueless -- trying to uncover what he'd seen on the night of the murder."

"Like extraction?" says Ariadne, raising her voice to be audible above the rattle of the train.

"Absolutely," says Eames. "Problem was, the people who employed her didn't want Ricky to remember seeing the victim's wife. They wanted him to remember somebody else."

"So Iselin ..."

"She didn't uncover what was there. She buried something else instead."

Ariadne is staring at him, her mouth slightly open. She looks very young, and he wants to kiss her.

"Eames," she says, "that's _inception_."

"It certainly would be," agrees Eames, bracing himself as the train begins to slow, "if she'd done it in dreams. She didn't: it was all hypnotherapy, suggestion. We didn't realise -- there was no evidence that she knew anything at all about dream-sharing. The idea was that we'd put her in a dream, confront her with Ricky Teran, and get her to tell us what she'd changed. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out."

"You were Ricky Teran," says Ariadne.

"I was Ricky Teran," Eames concurs. The train lurches to a halt, and he peers out at another station. This one's rather more modern than ΚΝΩΣΟΣ: there are sleek perspex panels, and behind them an elaborate mural of a maze. Of _course_ a maze. "End of the line," he says, and ushers Ariadne out onto the platform.

Cobb's there, waiting for them. He's slouched on one of the recurved metal benches, next to a first-aid point, glowering.

"Bugger," mutters Eames under his breath. Louder and more amiably, "Dominic! Good to see you again. Arthur not joining us?"

"You know he can't," snaps Cobb, shoving himself to his feet.

Eames knows no such thing, but he lets it go. "And you're here because ...?" He lets the sentence trail invitingly.

"I wanted to talk to you," says Cobb. He barely glances at Ariadne, and the shock in her expression shades into hurt. No, annoyance. Good girl, thinks Eames.

"Since you apparently think I'm dead," he says to Cobb with brisk precision, "that would probably be classified as spiritualism. I don't suppose you brought a Ouija board? Or perhaps you prefer table-tapping?" He steps forward and raps his knuckles on the tiled wall, once, twice, three times. That should ... yes.

"Even dead, you're an asshole," snarls Cobb.

Eames grins at him. "Ariadne," he says over his shoulder, "you're looking a tad peaky. Why don't you see if there's anything useful in that first aid kit?"

"I don't know what you are," Cobb's saying, "but you can't be Eames. I saw the body: for fuck's sake, Eames, they made me identify your body!"

(Ariadne's smart: she's trusting him against the odds, doing as she's told. Out of the corner of his eye, Eames can see her checking the vials and uncoiling the IV line, making herself as comfortable as she can on the unforgiving aluminium bench.)

"And I don't know what's going on with you and Arthur," Cobb goes on, so angry he's spitting, "but believe me, there's no future in --"

* * *

She's on a beach.

She has never been here before. This is not the crumbling shore of Limbo. The waves do not crash: they lap and slide, slow and thick as oil, glowing-grey as liquid metal. Above her, the sky is blank, without colour and almost painfully luminous.

She's maybe twenty feet from the ocean's edge. When she turns, the beach stretches to the horizon. This is an empty world. No buildings scar the skyline. Nothing is green. No one is here except Ariadne herself.

"I'm here," she says to the empty air, the way she'd say, "I'm dreaming," or "I'm awake". Anchoring herself.

She turns to her left and begins walking, keeping her distance from the surfless ripple of the sea. The beach is mostly pebble, with patches of pale sand and the occasional boulder. The pebbles are seldom larger than her fist: keeping her balance requires constant attention, placing each sneakered foot carefully, using her arms to counter each chancy step.

There's a flicker of motion to her left, a faint sound. Ariadne stops, turns, peers into the emptiness. The air shimmers, like a mirage. There's a glassy, glossy quality to the landscape, like a photograph seen through thick glass. She glimpses movement in her peripheral vision when she reaches out uncertainly: halts, and the flicker is gone. Not mirage but mirror, then, though she casts no reflection.

Ariadne is sick of layers, sick of mirrors, sick of mazes. She wants to break it all. She bends down, picks up a stone -- it's smooth and grey in her hand -- and throws it as hard as she can.

The air shatters, which does not surprise Ariadne because that's what she'd wanted to happen: that proves she has some power in this level of the dream. What _does_ surprise her is the tableau thus revealed, as though a curtain's been drawn back from a stage.

There's a woman there, not ten feet away from where Ariadne stands transfixed. If she has noticed Ariadne, she doesn't show it. She is of average height, her hair lighter than her skin, her profile like an empress on an ancient coin. This is, this must be, Iselin Elmasry; this must be the murderer.

Iselin is toe-to-toe with another figure. Her reaching hands are quick and busy, and at first Ariadne thinks the woman is sculpting or washing or painting a mannequin. Then, stepping closer, she sees that the still form is struggling, trying to get away from Iselin. It's a man, young, long-haired, with a feeble moustache and baggy jeans and a sports tee: this has got to be Ricky Teran, the witness for the prosecution.

Which means it's almost certainly not Ricky at all, but --

Ariadne steps forward, and as though a door's been opened she can hear the two of them: Iselin murmuring low and laughing, "You'll never leave this place, you'll never pick yourself up and leave". She spreads her hand over Ricky's face -- she has large hands for a woman -- and _claws_ , and Ricky (who isn't Ricky) screams as his face tears free, and Ariadne desperately wants to look away but she needs to see that yes, yes, it's Eames under there, lighter-skinned and suddenly bulkier, and Iselin Elmasry is ripping away his forge as though it were a papier-mâché mask. "There won't be anything left of you," Iselin's saying, soft and clear beneath the noises that Eames is making. "There won't be enough to build you back."

Eames is looking straight at Ariadne, his gaze intense. He's still screaming -- and Ariadne doesn't want to think about the way that Iselin's strong clever hands are clawing handfuls of bloodless substance from Eames' faltering forge -- but it's not pain, not exactly, in his gaze: and the voice that screams isn't his own.

Iselin is scattering pieces of ... pieces of Eames all over the beach. Part of an arm drops to the pebbles like an empty sleeve. The curve of Eames' shoulder teeters atop a cluster of stones. Iselin is tearing him apart, demolishing him, crumpling him up. Killing him. Keeping him here.

"Stop!" yells Ariadne, but her cry comes out soundless. She's dumb here, as if this place can only carry a finite volume of sound: Iselin's voice and Eames' screams are filling up the air like static between stations. And besides, she tells herself, this isn't happening. This isn't happening now, in front of me. This has happened, and is past.

Ariadne steps back, one step, two, and hears only the soothing lap of water on stone. She can still see Iselin, and the human-shaped meshwork, the Sierpinsky sieve of the body that she's shredding. It's like watching through a heat haze, or through dirty glass. Ariadne forces herself to look away, down at the clean bland pebbles.

Ten feet in front of her there's a sudden shock of colour in her peripheral vision: something red. Ariadne isn't at all sure that she wants to see redness, but she quickens her pace until she can stoop and pick up a red plastic die. It's unexpectedly heavy in her palm. If she rolled it, maybe it would tell her who was dreaming.

Three steps away lies half a hand, bloodless as wax. It's long-fingered, well-manicured: familiar. She can remember the gentleness of that hand touching her, soothing her awake from her first dream-death.

Suddenly it all surges in on her. Suddenly she's running, sobbing, stumbling, falling, scrambling up again. "Wake me up!" she screams at the sky. "Somebody wake me up!"

Far, far ahead, there's something that isn't beach or sea. Ariadne runs towards it, away from Iselin Elmasry and the fragments of her friends.

She's dreaming: the distance telescopes, and suddenly she's almost level with another figure. Someone is fishing: someone hooded, huddled, hunched at the edge of the beach, facing out to sea.

"Help me!" cries Ariadne, skidding down the shingle towards this stranger. "Wake me up!"

She trips over something; sprawls, winded, whooping for air. When she tries to breathe it's icy-wet and tastes of tears. She gets her hands under her -- they sting where she's skinned them on sharp stones -- and tries to push herself back up out of the water: but there's something heavy pressing her down, and there's water in her mouth, her nose, water everywhere. She struggles, because in this moment instinct is stronger than the urge to escape -- if she dies here, where will she wake -- who's holding her down, if it's not Eames' weight, if it's not Arthur's smooth long-fingered hands, if it's not Iselin --

* * *

"-- loving someone who's dead!"

"Ah, but what if you're dead too?" counters Eames, amused and sardonic. "At least we're on the same footing, Arthur and I."

He's dimly aware that Ariadne is still awake -- no, she's awake _again_ , gasping and gulping and sobbing, greedy for air, hunched over herself on the narrow metal seat. Time passes oddly here, and the somnacin in this PASIV isn't the formulation he's accustomed to using. But Cobb's right in his face, shouting at him, and he'd take it more personally if he didn't know how ferociously Cobb had mourned Mal.

"No use worrying about it," he says breezily. "It is what it is."

"And what is it? What are _you_?"

"Persistent," Eames offers. Ariadne's still choking. He turns his back on Cobb and goes over to the bench, crouching down before it. "Ariadne?"

"This isn't London," says Ariadne.

Eames blinks. "No, love," he says, after a beat. "No, it isn't."

Cobb comes up to the two of them. "Ariadne? That was ..." He rounds on Eames. "Why's she awake already? Didn't it --"

"It doesn't take long to see the truth, Cobb. Not if you're looking for it."

"I saw Iselin," says Ariadne. "I saw what she did."

"Right," says Eames, rubbing the spot between his eyebrows with two fingers. "What she did down here. And presumably, up there," he jerks his chin, "she paid off Frazer --"

"Who?"

"Frazer? The lawyer, the chap in charge of the defense. With hindsight -- and Arthur agrees with me on this -- it had to be him. Iselin insisted on having Frazer as a witness, said she wanted an independent observer to ensure that the proper procedures were followed. He was keeping an eye out when we went under. Presumably she persuaded him to wake her up before us, so she could ... finish what she'd started."

"All four leads had been used," Cobb says. "But there were three --"

"Corpses," says Eames, lingering on the word. "It's quite all right, Mr Cobb: you don't need to spare my feelings."

"Two corpses," says Ariadne. "Marlowe's alive. Marlowe's dreaming. I think I saw him. On the beach. It must've been him." She looks bleakly back at Eames. "You were --"

"Quite," says Eames, because he really, really doesn't want to hear the details. Living them -- well, dreaming them -- the first time around was more than sufficient.

"Marlowe's dreaming this?"

"I don't know," says Eames. He glances at the tube map, at the humming steel rails, at the orange dot-matrix indicators (a line of Greek is scrolling past: ΕΣΤΕ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΛΑΒΥΡΙΝΘΩ). "Does this look like one of his? Nice job he's done of it, I must say. Very detailed."

"Eames --"

"You mean this isn't Marlowe's dream?" says Ariadne. "It's yours?"

Eames thinks about answering the question, but he's distracted by a distant sound. Cobb's head is cocked: he's listening, staring into the darkness. "There's a train coming."

"If we're lucky," says Eames thoughtfully, "it'll be a train."

"What do you mean?" demands Ariadne.

"There are worse things than trains in the labyrinth," says Eames. "We didn't know if Iselin could get in, so we added some safeguards."

"We?" says Ariadne: but Cobb interrupts, wheeling round to jab a finger at Eames.

"What? What's coming?"

"A train," says Eames firmly, crossing his fingers for luck -- in his pocket, where they won't see. "It'll be on the other platform."

Ariadne heads towards the edge of the platform. "So we just cross over --"

"Ariadne!" His tone is urgent enough that she halts mid-stride, turning back with eyebrows raised. "Seriously: don't cross the tracks," says Eames.

"But we need --"

" _We_ ," says Eames, pausing to emphasise the pronoun, "don't need to do anything. _You_ , on the other hand, really should be going."

As if on cue, there's an ominous sound from one of the corridors leading off the platform. All three of them glance towards the noise.

"Projections?" says Cobb.

"You never know," says Eames. "Come on: we'd best be on that train."

"How?" says Ariadne, looking around wildly. "There isn't --"

"This way." Eames heads off down the platform, away from the crescendo of the approaching train. He can hear them coming after him. He can also hear something clattering, far off but coming closer, like the sound of hooves on pavement. He walks more quickly, head down, and concentrates on perspective.

And yes, yes: the parallel platforms _do_ converge, and he pauses to wait for the other two -- Ariadne somewhat breathless, Cobb wide-eyed and tight-lipped -- before turning and walking back along the other platform.

"If this is your dream --"

"I never said it was mine, Cobb."

"Then who --"

"You know how Arthur likes his paradoxes," Eames says, and winks at Ariadne.

"But if he's dreaming this, then ..." Cobb's voice trails off.

"The train should be along in just a mo," says Eames unnecessarily. It's true: the indicator is now showing "1. HOSPITAL via MUSEUM 1 min" and beneath that, scrolling, "LAST TRAIN TONIGHT". (Eames frowns at 'HOSPITAL': but that must be where Marlowe's ended up, poor bloke.) The rails are humming, and there's a gust of air that smells, more than anything, of cattle.

The train roars in. It's red, and doesn't appear to have a driver. There are no other passengers, but Eames doesn't let his companions sit down: he crowds them into the space at the end of the carriage, by the emergency exit. Cobb stares fiercely at the advertisements above the seats. "People say that you'll die faster than without water," reads one: "let SOMNACIN save your sleep!" There's one for an exhibition called The Big Sleep at the Museum. There's one for a dry-cleaning company, and Eames smiles to himself when he recognises the man in the photograph.

"You and Arthur --"

"It's all right," says Eames softly. "There's more to this maze than you might've guessed: there are levels you haven't seen, that no one else can reach."

"And you're together, there?"

"Mmmm," says Eames. He's holding the rail above the door, slouched so that his own weight strains the shoulders of his suit. "You need to wake up."

"How do I do that?"

"Read the sign," says Eames. He jerks his chin at the emergency cord.

"I don't -- I can't read Greek."

Eames scrubs at the letters (ΕΙΣ ΤΗΝ ΕΞΟΔΟΝ ΥΠΟΤΕΙΝΕΤΕ ΤΟ ΚΑΛΩΙΟΝ ΤΟ ΕΡΥΘΡΟΝ) with his sleeve, until they read 'To exit, pull the RED CORD'.

"Eames, I --"

"Pull it!" And suddenly Cobb's there too, reaching between the two of them, yanking on the cord (which is really more like a curtain tie). The train lurches, throwing all three of them off balance. Ariadne falls against Eames, and her fingers clench on his arm, hard enough to bruise. Eames needs to, has to, make her let go of him, but he's falling too, her slight weight tipping his balance. Then --

* * *

"-- am I being dreamed?"

"I hope that's not a complaint, Arthur," comes Eames' voice. "I've been to considerable lengths to give you everything that your heart could possibly desire."

Arthur whirls round, and Eames is there, is _here_ , where he shouldn't be: where, a moment ago, he wasn't.

"What are you doing here?" he demands, and Cobb can just fuck off if he's going to disapprove of the smile that Arthur can't quite suppress.

"Came to see the exhibition," says Eames casually, waving a negligent hand at where Marlowe sleeps in his glass casket. "Or, actually, I was dragged along." He smirks at Ariadne, who's clinging to his arm.

"I didn't --" begins Ariadne hotly, but then Eames catches her eye, and the two of them are laughing.

It hurts.

"You saw what happened." Three steps take Arthur to stand right in front of Ariadne. Cobb looks angry, but Ariadne looks ... devastated. He's sure it was her, not Cobb, who'd dared to go all the way down to where the memories lurk and loop, coiled like wires in a bomb. "I'm sorry," says Arthur, and he's not even sure if he's apologising for whatever Eames did to get her to understand, or for the fact that they're both ...

Well. As Eames is so fond of saying, it is what it is.

"She ... Iselin, she ... On the beach. I saw her. Or maybe I saw your memory of her." Ariadne glances back at Eames. "She destroyed you."

From the look on Cobb's face, this is news to him.

"We went in as auditors," says Arthur. "We don't know when she found out we were working for the defence, or how she knew about the dreamshare, or what she had on Frazer that persuaded him to sell us out. We can't be sure what they did after Frazer woke her up. But as far as we can determine, there's nowhere for us to wake up to."

"This," adds Eames, spreading his arms theatrically wide to take in the light, airy room, the museum with its fathomless basement levels, the secret passages that lead them back to one another, "this is all there is."

Cobb stares at Eames, then at Arthur. "What happens if you die down here? What happens if I shoot you?"

"No!" cries Ariadne, trying to get between Cobb and Arthur.

"It's okay," says Arthur. He feels helpless: he feels unreal.

Eames -- who's wandered off to examine the somnacin levels on the PASIV -- says over his shoulder, "It's just like fragging someone in a game, Ariadne. Shoot him, and he'll wake up somewhere else. Trust me: I've tried."

Arthur glares, and Eames winks back at him. (Okay, it _had_ been kind of fun.)

"I don't see how this can happen," says Cobb. "That isn't how projections --"

Eames shrugs. "Don't knock it: it works."

"What happened to Marlowe?" asks Arthur, before Cobb and Eames can start squaring off.

"He's alive, but he hasn't woken up," says Cobb. "We think this is his dream, and --"

"But it's not, is it?" says Ariadne fiercely. "If it was his dream, you wouldn't be able to change things. You wouldn't be able to send me down another level," she says to Eames' broad back. "You wouldn't be dreaming the London Underground for Eames," she says to Arthur. "So who's dreaming? Whose dream are we in right now?"

Behind her, a painting crashes to the floor. This is alarming, not least because when Arthur last looked, there were no paintings in this room. Ariadne's changing things, making the dream unstable, and she doesn't even know it. He walks past her, crouches, flips the painting face-up. It's 'Bond of Union', the picture he'd been staring at when Ariadne and Cobb arrived: two faces, a single ribbon of peel. Arthur props it against the wall for now.

"It doesn't matter whose dream it is," he tells Ariadne, straightening up.

"It matters if you're projections," says Cobb.

"They're not projections," says Ariadne. "Look at them, Cobb! Do they look like projections to you?"

"Unfair, unfair," objects Eames. "Cobb's not really in a position to judge, is he, Ariadne? He's always had a bit of a problem with rogue --"

"You --"

"Will you guys stop fighting and _talk_?" snaps Ariadne. It's exactly the tone that Arthur's mom used when he and his brother were quarrelling. (Maybe I'm dreaming _her_ , thinks Arthur. But he doesn't have projections of his own any more, not the way he used to before ... before.)

"This -- I bet this has never happened, right?" Ariadne's saying. "That someone's survived in a dream when they've died in reality?"

Arthur shakes his head, glancing at the other two. Eames looks worried. Cobb looks utterly betrayed.

"Before. With Mal. You were all so keen to persuade me _she_ was a projection. My projection."

"Cobb, we're not projections," says Arthur.

"Then what _are_ you?"

"We're not what Mal was," says Arthur, putting his hand on Cobb's shoulder. "I guarantee you that."

Cobb shrugs out of his hold. "So," he pursues, "how come you survived? Is it because you've both been trained to keep control of yourself in the dream-state? Because you're mentally resilient?"

"The word you're looking for is 'stubborn'," says Eames, and Arthur huffs out a laugh. "Or persistent, maybe."

"You're not keeping yourselves alive," says Ariadne slowly. "You're keeping each other alive. You're dreaming one another."

"Ariadne, they're not -- They're just shades."

"Shady, maybe," says Arthur, with a pointed look at Eames. Eames smirks back at him: and oh, it's good, it's almost like --

"I really think it's time you were leaving," says Eames amiably to Ariadne. "Both of you."

"But, Eames --"

"How d'you think we should give 'em the kick?" Eames asks Arthur over the top of Ariadne's head.

Arthur shrugs. "Keep it simple." He reaches back, hooks the Glock out of the holster at the small of his back, and levels it at Cobb.

"No!" Ariadne cries, struggling in Eames' sudden firm grasp.

Cobb's gone.

"Darling," says Eames gently, "you have to go." He kisses Ariadne's hair.

"Not yet! There's a timer --"

Then Arthur and Eames are alone again: alone, except for one another.

* * *

"-- is what it seems," finished Miles.

Ariadne curled over herself, the IV tugging painfully at her arm, gasping and sobbing for air. She could hear Cobb gasping on the other side of the bed.

"Ariadne?" Miles was at her elbow, offering a plastic cup of cold water. Ariadne gulped it down. She felt exhausted, as though she'd run a marathon. She felt desolate.

"Thank you," she managed. Miles was sliding the IV out of her arm, gentle and competent, swiping at the beading blood with an alcohol wipe. She remembered Arthur doing the same for her, back on the Fischer job, and choked on another sob.

"They're in there," said Cobb hoarsely. "Somehow, they're in there."

Ariadne propped her elbows on the edge of the hospital bed and stared at the man lying there. Marlowe. His face was less serene now than it had been in the museum. His skin was flaking, and yellowing bruises distorted the lines of his skull. Mucus rattled in his endotracheal tube. The IV that connected him to the PASIV had red tape wrapped around the end that went into his wrist.

"How long can he last?" said Cobb. "How long can they keep him alive?"

"Did you find out what happened?" parried Miles. He did not meet Ariadne's insistent gaze.

"They were double-crossed," said Cobb shortly. "Iselin Elmasry woke up -- must've set the timer, or had someone else to give her the kick -- and she ... she ... "

"She killed them," said Ariadne. "She -- it was her. And she's out there somewhere. And Miles, she's dangerous. She knows how to dream. She --." Ariadne swallowed, remembering Iselin's strong brown hands tearing Eames apart like a child attacking a Play-Dough model. "She destroyed them."

"But they're still there," prompted Miles. "That's extremely interesting. The persistence of identity in the dream, when the brain that contains that identity is dead: there were some --"

"It's Arthur." Ariadne's voice was raw. "We're talking about Arthur and Eames. They're not projections, they're --"

"They have to be projections, Ariadne," said Miles kindly. "There isn't any other --"

"They're not projections," interrupted Cobb. He'd fetched more water, and he handed Ariadne another cup. "At least ... I don't understand what they are, Miles, but they don't behave like projections. They interact. They plan. They exist -- they _persist_ \-- when nobody's dreaming them."

"They're dreaming each other," said Ariadne, and she could feel tears on her face even though she was smiling.

"A paradox," said Miles. "Hmm."

"You need to tell me what happened with Iselin," Cobb said to Ariadne. "Did you see her, down there? Did she --"

"She tore them apart, Cobb." Ariadne shuddered. "She was in control of the dream. She knew what they were trying to do, and she stopped them. Cobb, I think ... From what Eames told me, she might as well have incepted the witness. I think she could do that, even without dreams."

"You mean she put false memories into somebody's mind?" Miles was frowning. "So they were remembering something that never happened?"

"It's no worse than what we did to Fischer," said Cobb.

"We didn't kill anyone!"

"Ariadne ..." If Cobb had been going to argue, he let it drop: just stared at her helplessly, as though _she_ could give him answers.

"What about this chap?" said Miles, gesturing at the unconscious man in the bed.

Cobb said, "There were two layers of dream. No, three. A museum: that was Arthur's level."

"Marlowe was asleep. In a glass case," supplied Ariadne. "I didn't see him on Eames' level, but --"

"They're not on the same level?"

Miles, Ariadne noted, was talking about them as though they truly existed, which was a step forward.

"It looked like different levels," said Ariadne. "But they -- they were on the same level, before we woke up."

"Then who was dreaming it?" demanded Cobb. "If the Underground was Arthur's dream, then --"

"Marlowe," said Ariadne doubtfully. "It must've been. And he was in the deepest level. On the beach. He was fishing."

"Did he catch anything?"

Ariadne stared at Miles, thrown by the sheer irrelevancy of his question. "Of course not," she said. "It was -- No, wait." She tried to remember the beach. The solitary dark figure, sitting silently with his back resolutely to the horrors playing out behind him. Holding her down as --

"I don't know," she said at last, helplessly. "I didn't see."

"What do you think he'd catch down there?" asked Cobb.

"Dreams," said Miles, frowning down at Marlowe's sleeping face. "Nightmares."

Pieces of Eames, thought Ariadne. Pieces of Arthur.

"How long can he last?" said Cobb. He'd posed the same question earlier: his voice was harder now.

"The doctors haven't got a clue," pronounced Miles. "There's no physical injury keeping him from waking up: his condition's stable. He might wake up tomorrow. He might never wake up. He's simply --"

"Dreaming," said Ariadne. "We have to keep him dreaming."

-end-

**Author's Note:**

> The print that Arthur's staring at, in the museum, is [Bond of Union](http://www.mcescher.com/Gallery/recogn-bmp/LW409.jpg) by M C Escher.  
> The artwork 'Still, Life' was inspired by [The Maybe](http://www.we-find-wildness.com/2010/06/cornelia-parker-tilda-swinton/).
> 
> It's all Greek to Me:  
> ΚΝΩΣΟΣ -- Knossos  
> ΕΣΤΕ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΛΑΒΥΡΙΝΘΩ - You are in the labyrinth  
> ΕΙΣ ΤΗΝ ΕΞΟΔΟΝ ΥΠΟΤΕΙΝΕΤΕ ΤΟ ΚΑΛΩΙΟΝ ΤΟ ΕΡΥΘΡΟΝ - to exit, pull the red cord  
> Profound thanks to A and T, who provided the Greek.  
>  
> 
> This fic would never have been finished without the insight and critical input of **knowmydark**. Thanks also to **lmeden** for extensive commentary on an earlier version, which made me think harder and smarter.


End file.
